Material to focus on from Upton Sinclairs The Jungle, for the 2nd Midterm (50 minutes total)
PART 1 (15 minutes each x 5 terms) on the actual test, you will be given 5 of the following 8. In each of your answers, give the context/background for, define, and tell the significance/after-effect of each of the following, within the framework of late-19th/mid-20th-century US history.
1890s-1910s peak of the “second wave” of U.S. immigration
Taylorism vs. “speeding-up the gang” & pacemakers
“embalmed beef” (“tinned beef”), “potato flour” & “patent medicines”
Pure Food & Drug Act and Federal Meat Inspection Act (1906)
Socialist Party (1901+)/”wage slavery”
“Melting Pot” (1890s-1960s in its original meaning)
Emergency Quota Act (1921) & National Origins Act (1924)
National Labor Relations Act (1935) & Fair Labor Standards Act (1938)
Part 2: you will be given a choice of 3 questions, and you will write on 2 of those (of your choice) on the actual test:
1. Years after the publication of his Socialist novel The Jungle, Upton Sinclair ironically noted the chiefly Progressive impact of his book, stating that he “had taken aim at America’s heart and hit instead its stomach.” Compare & contrast the two, major, early-20th-century reform-minded ideologies of Progressivism and Socialism.
2. Why was Socialism considered a “radical” ideology and why had it collapsed as a nationwide party by the mid-1920s?
3. In what ways was the Progressive Era (1906-20) truly “progressive” or not; and the “New Deal” (1933-38) really “new” or not, especially in regards to the health, safety and daily lives of U.S. workers and consumers?
